200 Church Street

P. O. Box 911

Abbeville,  South Carolina   29620-0911

Trinity Episcopal Church was founded in 1842. Thomas Parker is considered the founder. The congregation worshiped in the Court House until a small white clapboard building in 1843 on the site of the present building.

In 1858, members of the vestry, whose names appear on the pews they occupied, felt the growing and affluent congregation needed a larger building.

George Walker, a Columbia archietect, was chosen and he designed the building in the French Gothic Revival style which was appropriate as Abbeville was named for Abbeville, France. The total cost, including the organ, was $15,665.00.

The cornerstone was laid in 1859. The walls are solid brick, using brick made on the premises, and covered by a cement like exerior, called "rough case". This was a common Victorian practice to cover bricks that were porous. All interior woodwork was done by local craftsmen and is grained in the manner of the day. Graining was a decorative device of the day -often called faux bois or false wood. The steeple is 120 feet tall and in spite of local lore, no one was killed during its erection. The large gold cross atop the spire has long dominated the Abbeville skyline.

On November 4, 1860, not quite three weeks before the fateful Secession meeting was held in Abbeville, the service of consecration was held. On November 22, the Secession meeting was held and the old South was gone forever.

We assume that all the windows at the time the church opened were like the one on the south side of the nave just in front of the balcony. This is stenciled on glass and was a good substitute for colored or stained glass during the mid-nineteenth century. The children's window, next to the new organ was given by long-ago children in the congregation. The diamond-paned windows were given by nineteenth century vestrymen. We have no information about the Tiffany-styled windows above and beside the entrance doors.

The large chancel window was a gift from a "Greenville church" and was ordered from England to be placed at the time of consecration. Unfortunately, the window did not arrive until 1863, having run the blockade in Charleston harbor. It was not the Trinity window ordered for this church and the story is that it was to have been sent to a northern church. Since it was wartime, the window was kept and the wall altered to fit. The Epiphany window, next to the Baker organ, was given by members of the Lovell and Cheves families and was installed in 1941 when Trinity was closed and services, with the exception of funerals, homecomings, etc., were not held in the church.

The bell in the steeple was given by J. Foster Marshall, an early member of the Trinity congregation. During the War Between the States, the Confederate government wanted the bell for war materials, but it was found to be made of unsuitable metal and will peal out again when repairs are made to the tower.

At the request of the congregation, only two people are buried in the church garden. Foster Marshall and his wife, Elizabeth, both longtime and long ago benefactors of the church. Marshall was killed in 1862 at the Second Battle of Manassas.

The congregation began to dwindle after World War I and ceased to hold regular services in the early thirties. In the late 1940's, former members, now retired, began to come home to Abbeville and were successful in reopening the church. The first full-time vicar was appointed in 1954. and regular services have continued.

There is a beautiful old cemetery a short distance behind the church. Many veterans of Confederate service are buried here, as well as six Confederate soldiers who died of illness having been taken off the train in Abbeville. There is also one Union soldier buried here.

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